The Word Created the Image Created the Word

At the opening of the exhibition "Sense and Sensibility" that will be shown at the Künstlerhaus Salzburg from the 21st of July to the 25th of September, the title, taken from a Jane austen novel,  already foreshadowed what this exhibition is all about: The link between word and image. "But", as Hemma Schmutz, head of the Salzburger Kunstverein, pointed out in her opening speech, "it's not about the direct use of text in art but how literature inspires artists, and also about those gifted in both areas."

The group exhibition features contributions as diverse as floating eggs, videos of people reciting texts and a library of unread books. There is also a different kind of library, the open library thought up by artist duo Clegg & Guttmann, which is bascially an unsupervised concrete box inviting people to bring, but also to take books.

But why are we from the Summeracademy especially interested in this exhibition? Well, because one of our very own artists, Katrin Plavcak (seen below pointing at one of her works) is participating in the exhibition before she will be teaching the course "Three Paintings I wouldn't have done quite so fast" in August at the fortress Hohensalzburg.

We can take away from this evening that the doom of the written word that some publishers are seeing behind is far off judging by the numbers of people that enthusiastically studied the paintings, browsed the books and listened. Make sure to stop by the Künstlerhaus, and bring some time with you.                            mp